I have my new TradeStation account funded and ready to go. I'm spending this weekend trying to get up to speed on the platform. I'm so use to ThinkorSwim so it will take a little getting use to.

I'm starting this thread to post some tips and tricks as I come across them.

For some reason, I have trouble seeing the blue and white candles on the grey background on this platform. It was fine on NinjaTrader and ThinkorSwim, but I just can't get use to it yet on TradeStation. Therefore, for now, I'm going with a black background (which use to be the original PFA color scheme).

Below is a CAD/CHF chart showing a daily supply zone on the TradeStation chart.

One thing to note, it appears that the Daily chart displays by default the regular and after hours sessions. Therefore, no need to use a 1440 minute chart as you had to do on NinjaTrader.

To compress and decompress the horizontal scale, you must use the up and down arrow keys. I'm use to just dragging the horizontal scale. However, it appears that this feature is not available in TradeStation. I'll get use to it though. There are also increase and decrease bar spacing icons on the toolbar that does the same thing as the up and down arrow.

You can scale the vertical access through dragging. Hopefully someday they will have horizontal scaling through dragging.

You also want to make sure that you you Enable Background Dragging in order to scroll back in time.

I trade the currency futures all the time. Apparently the symbols are all different on TradeStation. They use the pit symbols instead of the Globex symbols. I'm still trying to figure out if the specifications are the same. Here is what I have come up with:

6A is AD in TradeStation
6B is BP
6C is CD
6E is EC
6J is JY
6N is NE1
6S is SF

I haven't checked all these symbols yet. However, I did notice that there is definitely something wrong on the historical data for the NE1. This historical data is supposed to go back to 1999 per TradeStation's website. However, it is only going back to 10/1/13 on the Continuous Contract chart. I will be notifying TradeStation about this problem.

Also, some of the other symbols are different. To trade the Russell it's not TF it is ER2. The soybean markets have different symbols too.

Thanks Jeff
I will be up and running on TS this week hopefully, so these tips will come in really handy.

You're welcome.

Here's something else I found out - To quickly change a chart from one symbol to another, you can just simply just start typing the symbol (if you know it) when a chart is displayed and then hit enter. The open chart will change to the new symbol. For example if you are on the ES continuous chart (@ES) and want to switch over to the Dow, simply type "@YM" and hit enter.

The same is true if you want to change the timeframe. For example if you are on a 60 minute chart, simply type 10 and hit enter and the chart will change to a 10 minute chart.

This also works for changing the amount of data displayed. For example if you are on a 60 minute displaying 200 days of data, simply type how much data you want to see and hit enter. For example, you can type "500 days" and hit enter and the chart will show 500 days of data. Or, you can type "5 years" and the chart will display 5 years of data. This platform loads historical data FAST. This is a huge improvement over NinjaTrader.

Here's an order example of how to create a limit sell with two profit targets and an initial stop loss. When the first profit target is reached, the stop loss on the remaining position will move to breakeven +1.

Note the example below shows an order for the CL. I'm not saying that this is a good trade or not. I'm just simply showing an example of how to do this.

I am saving this as a Staged Order in TradeStation. That way I can just pull it up and change the symbol, quantity, and prices whenever I want to enter a limit sell. I'll be doing the same for Limit Buys, Stop Limit Sells, and Stop Limit Buys.

What this order example will do is sell 2 contracts on a limit at 103.35 if price rallies up there. If the order is filled it will automatically place at the time of the fill an initial stop loss for both contracts at 103.70 and a first profit target at 102.70 for 1 contract. If target 1 is reached it will cancel the 103.70 stop loss order and send a new order for the remaining contract with a stop loss at 103.34 (breakeven +1) and a second profit target at 101.70.

Again, this order is not a trade I'm taking. It's just an example.

It's important to have the orders aligned exactly as shown on the screenshot. The example shows 2 targets (which is what I generally use).

The good thing about this is that the orders are saved on TradeStation's servers so once your order is in you can shut your computer and walk away and let the orders do their thing.

Jeff, Great example and thanks for taking the time to build it and explain it. You probably just saved those of is new (or soon to be new) to TradeStation a bunch of time! I'll definitely come back to this post in a few weeks. --Patrick

Jeff, Great example and thanks for taking the time to build it and explain it. You probably just saved those of is new (or soon to be new) to TradeStation a bunch of time! I'll definitely come back to this post in a few weeks. --Patrick

.Great. Glad I could help. Once your account is set up feel free to post your questions on this thread. Every day I'm starting to become more and more familiar with the platform.

During Tuesday's class Will was talking about the old trade arrows showing up on his charts. For those interested, it looks like you can easily add and remove these arrows whenever you want just like you can on NinjaTrader.

You can either go to the "Format" menu and select "Account Orders & Positions..." Or simply right click and select "Format Account Orders & Positions..." For the most part it appears you can access any menu you need by right clicking.

Once you are at the format window, you'll see the various options you can change. See screenshot below.

I'm still slowing figuring stuff out. I had no clue about the chart trader keyboard shortcut Will showed yesterday.

Here's another trick I just learned. It was annoying me that when I used the rectangle drawing tool that I could barely expand the rectangle past current price action. In order to be able to expand past the last candle you need to go to the Format Window Settings and change the "Space to the Right" box. See screenshot below. By default it is set to 5. I changed mine to 50 and it works just fine now.

For you TradeStation users, I did notice that for whatever reason the rectangle drawings don't show up when you scale down to a smaller timeframe. The line tools do show up. Therefore, to find levels on smaller timeframes you must use the line tools. I'm going to ask TradeStation about this flaw.

If memory serves me correct, the rectangles will show up when you have enough data loaded on the smaller time frame. For instance, if you draw your level on a daily and the level starts 6 months back; then you drop to a 60 minute chart, you may only be loading 90 days of data. Make sure you are loading enough data to cover when the zone is starting on the higher time frame. Trendlines will do the same thing, but horizontal lines will appear on all time frames because they display across the entire chart.

If memory serves me correct, the rectangles will show up when you have enough data loaded on the smaller time frame. For instance, if you draw your level on a daily and the level starts 6 months back; then you drop to a 60 minute chart, you may only be loading 90 days of data. Make sure you are loading enough data to cover when the zone is starting on the higher time frame. Trendlines will do the same thing, but horizontal lines will appear on all time frames because they display across the entire chart.

Kevin

Hi Kevin,

Thanks for the response. However, it ilooks like it currently is an issue with TradeStation. I have made sure that the same amount of data is loaded on the smaller timeframe. On last Friday's class I noticed that Will had the same issue on his TradeStation too. The weird thing is that the rectangle will show up on a higher timeframe, but not lower.

Thanks for confirming. I was going off memory since I no longer have access to TradeStation...for now. (It looks like I'm going back to them.) Try making sure that the rectangle doesn't exceed past the current bar. So if today on a daily, stop the rectangle the day before so that the 60 minute chart will show the level. It's an odd workaround, (and not the best) that I had been given when I contacted them about it awhile ago. What I ultimately did was just draw my rectangle about the level and then wrap it with trendlines to extend out. Post back the response from TradeStation, I'm curious what they say.

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